pants in the family and the setting of the scene:

––your wife is at home waiting dinner for you, but

you're looking at a painting in a museum of art across town.

but you're doing more than looking, you're studying it, squinting

your eyes to decrease the value of middle tones, and nonchalantly

putting your thumb-up at arm's length in front of the picture plane

for a sense of depth and juxtaposition, or in a fleeting, comic pantomime

to see what your thumb will look like promenading the grassy knoll during

"A Sunday Afternoon On the Island of La Grande Jatte",––

but it’s late in the day, and the museum’s closing soon,

and you haven’t figured anything out, and you’ve got to get home

where you know the kids have been pains-in-the-ass all day long,

and for sure you’re gonna hear about it from the madwoman at the sink

who was once the grace of your life, and you know you'll have to

try like hell to avoid flying objects,–––   would you say you've applied

any element of a defensive posture gleaned from your observations of 

"A Sunday Afternoon On the Island of La Grande Jatte"?

  

                    –August, 1963 / a love poem to Edwina Salsiccia-

In August of 1963 I gathered the things

I’d need for art school; pens, pencils,

drawing pads, little bristle brushes I used in order to

add color to the numbers of an eventually pleasant scene.

I'll need rags from under the sink, lots of erasers, and

I'll take with me that photo of you, Edwina, the one where

you’re sitting by my side at the folding banquet table 

during the "installation of officers" at the Sons of Italy Hall

when my father was presented with a plaque honoring him

for being the Italian-American man of the year, and O,

how can I leave you now, Edwina, only to make

my pictures look a little better, or maybe to taste

marijuana for the first time, probably exhaling the smoke

as if I was puffing a Chesterfield, and perhaps someone

will tell me to keep the smoke inside my lungs, or maybe

to experiment with adult women who know where to go

and what to do, and no doubt to be lectured of the goings on

of Picasso, Ingres, Rembrandt, and whoever else,–– but

I don’t know, and I don’t care.

Edwina, what I know is..I'll sorely miss the hypnotic appeal of your lazy eye

masking the blueness found in your good eye, the softness of your skin,

that river of skin above your blood-colored elbow running northward to

the little brown mole on your shoulder, (how its long black hair whispers)

and your drenched, exploring tongue rolling around inside my arid mouth

as if searching for something unknown, and yet desired, a new kind of water.

O, Edwina! the honeysuckle aroma of your knees, the smear of your breath,

as hot as the tailpipe exhaust of a souped-up '57 Chevy, and the sweet

softness of your vertically uneven tits (and this is not meant to be vulgar)

but it was the one on the left, that would be on your left, not my left,

and only I knew why the left rested higher than the other one, but, as you know,

that's the way of it sometimes, and it's ok because, well, I forget why,–– but

for this moment it's so long anyway, dear Edwina Salsiccia.

                   das lied

you may be asking:

what’s with the german?

It may seem senseless

but it isn't.

there it is in the title

of Rilke’s “the song of the waif”

where he reminds himself that he was little;

“almost too little to live”––

an infant, a reader would well deduce

and he invokes the name of God

as I sometimes do,

and he capitalizes God and I do too,

acting as though God’s my buddy,

as though we'd cruise the Friday night

drag on the hunt for Portuguese snatch,

as though I could bum a smoke,

as if God was God’s first name.

but,–– well, here it is.

my serenade to you this morning.

                    the fish, Elizabeth Bishop, Donald Palm, and me.

addendum:

Donald Palm has died.

the fish, well it’s dead, too.

so’s Elizabeth Bishop.

maybe I am as well.

you should read this

upon my demise.

it’ll all make sense.

it takes time to make

sense of complex things

like life and death

like hanging from a hook

like gumming your last

meal of mashed potatoes and carrots

or penning poems

through the night

until they’re finished

by sticking the ending.

but like I've always said: don't agonize over it.

                   And may the wind be at my back

1.–– I’m manning the weather helm of a great ship;

a mighty square-rigger beating southward into heavy seas,

but the ship is pointing true, stalwart and weatherly.

Of course I’m dreaming.

Earlier, in calmer waters, two horses had been executed

and thrown overboard to lighten the load for to catch the wind

in the grip of the breathless Horse Latitudes upon the deep Sargasso.

I might have met your acquaintance. 

Maybe you're an “old salt” like me.

Disclaimer:

I’ve never steered a ship, not even a smack, not

even an inflatable in the shape of a porpoise, floating

upon the plank of water in a backyard above ground wading pool.

2.–– Let's scan the morning papers for points of interest,

watch televised news events spinning on a blood-thirsty loop,

and write things down to juice-ip the process of continuation.

Somedays, could be Heaven;

Somedays, "H" "E" double hockey sticks.

 

Donald Palm is housed within an assisted living space

(derived from a photograph in the N.Y.Times, 11,19, 2023)

Donald Palm is wearing a baseball cap with

a large white “M” printed in front.

the cap is placed on his head by loved ones

and it appears he's not sure why.

the cap doesn’t look exactly right on his head.

It looks like an awkward afterthought.

It looks like it'd rather be on another head.

I have a baseball cap, too, except mine is intentional,

and has a large red “B” sewn into the front.

I have a shirt like Donald’s, checkered and colorful,

but Donald's falls more loosely around his body,

the body rapidly abandoning him.

he’s being assisted while sitting at a utilitarian table

which is designed to better serve him, as is the twin-handled

broth-filled mug.–– the soft-food dinner plate which

was prepared with him in mind, seems to have been pushed aside.

I’m sitting at a utilitarian table, too. right now in fact,

being assisted by Elisabeth Bishop as she informs me

about a fish she'd reeled-in from the lake, and hanging

port-side by its hook, she describes its appearance in vivid detail,

which is how I'd describe Donald Palm had I been a better poet.

but to honor Donald Palm, read Elisabeth Bishop’s: ”The Fish”.

                   get well soon

Armand, the terminally ill patient in room 601, the obvious,

most terminally ill patient, the personification of the common 

“one-foot-in-the-grave” diagnosis, the man, old and bone-thin,

skin-yellow as a sunny-side-up,–– the guy who once

brung home the bacon, now panting with his mouth agape,

dreaming of breath, dreaming of lost loves, dreaming of water,––

got another “get well” card for his permanent collection today.

It's real funny with the front cover of a smiling cartoon elephant

thinking of something within the little cloud above its head

with its bubbles heading downward, and on the inside flap

it has the same elephant, scowling and thinking of something else. haha.

these cards were placed on the sill to the window of his room,

and from there were placed with his belongings carefully packed

into a keepsake box carried to his granddaughter's house, who

placed the treasured keepsake in a special place, then later

on a high closet shelf where it laid to be forgotten, and then..

and then... poof!  it magically went away to who knows where;

the cards, the photos, the anti-boil medications, the little

floral spritzers, the bedsore ointments, the upper plate, the whole

keepsake box; it all went away just like that just like Armand.

                   I'll visit the art gallery

It’s a one-man-show.

It’s promo’d as

a one-man-show.

what's this?

how dare he!

I’ve got a bunch

of loose paper stuff

in the basement at home

better than the shit

he’s got hanging in here,

and his are under glass!

what're they, pheasants?

what a mad collection

of pomposity!

his guests are chatty

and neatly dressed,

and that's ok, but

they're all drinking

white wine like they like it.

I’ll bet he drinks chocolate-

flavored Bosco at home.

white wine. fuck this guy.

screw him and his stupid

friends and his stupid white wine.

I got white wine

better than this crap

in the cheap-o wine

cabinet in the kitchen.

my dog won’t even

lick-up the spills

and he licks anything!

fuck this gallery.

screw the wino who hangs

this crap all up in here, and...

ooo! chicken salad finger sandwiches!